In recent years, Mexican websites such as Blog del Narco have become increasingly popular as a way to exchange information on the drug war, due to their anonymity and freedom to reveal graphic details of crimes.

The Iranian government arrested 6 documentary filmmakers, accusing them of conspiracy. The filmmakers made documentaries about famous Iranians and Iran’s national history. Sampsonia Way compiled brief overviews and filmographies of the directors.

In this interview, Liao Yiwu talks to Maxine Case about his books, his struggles with the Chinese government, and related a few anecdotes about people on the fringe of Chinese society that he has interviewed and whose stories he had recorded.

Radio Farda’s Vahid Pourostad talks about his work with Persian Letters. Pourostad is a well-known Iranian journalist who before being forced to leave Iran about a year ago served on the editorial boards of a number of reformist newspapers.

This slide show features cartoons by Cuban political cartoonist Alfredo Pong. Pong, who has admitted that he suffers an incurable case of “Castrophobia,” is among many exiled journalists who continue to fight for a free Cuba.

Drug trafficking, and the violence it engenders, is Guatemala’s latest threat to freedom of speech. In her exclusive letter for Sampsonia Way, elPeriódico’s Claudia Méndez Arriaza uses her inside-the-newsroom perspective to compare the risk of being a journalist today with the risks of reporting during Guatemala’s bloody civil war.

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About Sampsonia Way

Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh that seeks to protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered, to educate the public about threats to writers and literary expression, and to create a community in which endangered writers thrive and literary culture is a valued part of life.